Don't worry - this is nothing to do with Josef Fritzl...although mentions of basements seem to bring up that imagery. (To be fair, Fritzl was from Austria like another infamous German speaker). This post is about the German basements (Keller or Souterrain or...
The GW Expat Blog
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daily life
How to tell when Germans are really being rude versus just being German
If you want to confirm the fact that the internet is not improving people's IQs, just type "rude Germans" into your favorite search engine. Boom! You'll get over 1.9 million results, most of which were written by morons. (But "rude French" pulls an amazing 39.1...
German Toilets
There are two kinds of toilets in Germany: (1) the old-fashioned shelf or platform type (Flachspüler) and (2) the newer non-shelf types (Tiefspüler). In older homes and flats you are more likely to encounter the shelf type. In newer residences or places that have been...
Life and Customs: Germany versus Sweden
Expats living in Europe have a unique opportunity to travel and visit interesting places in many countries. Traveling from Berlin to Stockholm, for instance, is only a 75-minute jet flight – about the same time as flying between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the...
You Know You’re a Real Expat in Germany When…
A while back, someone in our Expat Forum posted a clever "You know you're in Germany when..." I happened to run across that list again recently and thought I'd use it as inspiration for today's blog entry. These brief "You know you're not in Kansas any more when..."...
Bilingual Nagging
I continue to navigate my way as a parent of bilingual children. We extol the joys and merits of having children grow up speaking two languages -- the cognitive agility, the tendency towards more open-mindedness, and the acquisition of the language itself. The nuts...
Schäl Sick: Life on the Wrong Side of the Rhine
Here in Cologne, people tend to scrunch up their faces a bit when I tell them I live on the "other" side of the Rhine. And not in Deutz, close to the river and the city, but Kalk, deep into the hinterlands of the Falsche Seite. Kalk is a neighborhood with a reputation...
Applying for a Wohnung in Berlin
When we found out we were pregnant, we knew a two-room (one-bedroom in American) apartment was no longer going to cut it. So we went on the hunt for a three-room, ideally with a balcony, high floor, a little class and great transportation links. Slowly at first, and...
Confessions of an Expat TV Addict in Germany
This is the most honest way to introduce myself to German-Way readers, Hello, my name is ebe and I am an expat TV addict. It’s true. Despite living in Germany for several years, I still watch American TV every day. As a writer working from home, I have the freedom to...
Inverse Customs: When Germans Do Precisely the Opposite
Expats in Germany and the other German-speaking countries are often surprised by a type of culture shock I call "inverse customs." These are practices that are either the exact opposite of, or extremely different from the same custom in the US. Expats quickly learn...
Something from home
"Can we bring you anything that you can't get there?" is a common question our visitors from the UK ask. We usually spend a good ten minutes, both of us running through supermarket shelves in our minds' eye, but almost always to no avail. Aside from the odd big pack...
Germans: We don’t need no stinkin’ apartment numbers
It never really dawned on me that the Germans don't use apartment numbers – until I lived in a German apartment house. The only way the postal carrier (Postbote/Postbotin) can deliver mail to the correct apartment in even a large apartment complex is by the surname on...
What to do with all that junk?
The trash separation schemes in Germany are legendary, and have been covered in this blog previously: Garbage in, garbage out. But what do you do when your stuff doesn’t fit in any of those little bins anymore? Take it to the dump! In Germany, they don’t actually have...
More Things I Miss About Germany: Punctuality and Public Transport
Being in Ireland for the past couple of months has of course given me a new perspective about Germany and its many benefits. Every expat in Germany has some painful dealings with bureaucracy and at least one or two stories to tell that make others cringe and nod in...
Learning to Drive in Germany
I decided to depart my single, independent life years ago when I moved to Germany to marry my now husband. It involved making a lot of significant changes in my life all at once, including learning German, leaving a metropolis of the world (London) to move to the...
Where a House is a Home
I've been living in Germany for about two years now. I knew things would be different here, but how things would be different was a big question mark. Although I had visited Germany a few times before, living here is a whole different ball game... as we Americans like...
You Can Du Me: The Du/Sie Question
The question of du or Sie, informal versus formal "you," is a perennial one for expats in a place like Germany. Many European languages make a linguistic distinction based on interpersonal relationships. These distinctions have fallen out of use in modern English....
Airing Out a German Phobia: The Killer Draft
One definition of a split second: the time it takes between opening a window on a hot train and hearing a German say the two most dreaded words in the German language: "Es zieht!" ("There's a draft!") In the summer on German trains, in the days before most were air...
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